Health Information

It's pretty much all water and vitamins — a very healthy, nutritious food. It has more lycopene than any other fruits and veggies. What's lycopene? It's a pigment in red plant foods that researchers believe can prevent illness. It's also found in tomatoes.

At the store or farmer's market, you can buy watermelon uncut, sliced, or already in chunks. You eat it raw and it's very refreshing served cold in the summertime. The folks who grow and sell watermelons suggest making watermelon snow cones. Have an adult help you scoop out a big scoop of watermelon and freeze it. Then roll it in some vanilla yogurt, sprinkles, or sweetened coconut. Place the scoop on an ice cream cone or in a paper cone and enjoy.

Weird, but also good. For years, folks had to pick out — or spit out — those large black watermelon seeds. But now there are seedless watermelons, which grow — now get this — from seedless watermelon seeds. The trick is planting seeded watermelons near the seedless ones. Why? So bees can carry some of the pollen from the seeded watermelons to the unseeded ones. Otherwise, the seedless watermelon plants wouldn't produce fruit.